William M. Gwin

William McKendree Gwin (9 October 1805-3 September 1885) was a member of the US House of Representatives (D-CA) from 4 March 1841 to 3 March 1843 (succeeding Albert G. Brown and preceding William H. Hammett). He went on to serve in the US Senate from California from 10 September 1850 to 4 March 1861, preceding James A. McDougall.

Biography
William McKendree Gwin was born in Gallatin, Tennessee in 1805, and he served as secretary to President Andrew Jackson during his second term in office. In 1833, he became US Marshal for Mississippi, serving from 1841 to 1843. He moved to California in 1849, and he purchased property in Paloma, where a gold mine was established. He went on to serve in the US Senate from 1850 to 1855 and from 1857 to 1861, with the state legislature reappointing Gwin due to an inability to find another successor. By 1860, he was advocating the purchase of Alaska from the Russian Empire, and he organized failed mediation conferences between Secretary of State William H. Seward and the Confederates before the American Civil War. During the war, he was arrested twice for Confederate sympathies, and he took part in a failed plot to settle Sonora, Mexico with Confederate refugees. He died in 1885.